# The Tea Party movement's overall effect on the 2010 midterms **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 16, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916 "2010-09-16T00:50:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/21 "2010-09-17T02:52:38Z")
There is a hope though: Scott Brown and other moderate Republicans may be joined by Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and others to form a centrist faction of the Republican Party. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/22 "2010-09-17T03:00:04Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > There is a hope though: Scott Brown and other moderate Republicans may be joined by Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and others to form a centrist faction of the Republican Party. As long as you’re here, why don’t you drop back into your “Your Endorsements 2010” thread"? ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/23 "2010-09-17T03:17:30Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The tea party brought . . . Brewer Actually, Obama, of all people, stuck us with Scary Jan. Bastard. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/24 "2010-09-17T20:55:15Z")
By the way, are there any polls out there on the effects of a Tea Party Republican nominee on the choices of Democrats or liberals in the general election? Because, personally, it doesn’t matter much to me whether a Republican is plain or teabagger–it won’t affect my voting because on all the big issues they are the same. > [@](#): > > Note that there’s nothing about abortion or gay marriage or the War on Terror. Its focus is small-government economic-libertarian – deregulate, defund, privatize, cut taxes. Different TP groups have come out with different manifestos. But certainly seems that all of them are climate change deniers and social conservatives. In fact, the aforementioned NPR series included a debate between the head of some social conservative network and a TP organizer. While the TP organizer acknowledged that social conservatism was common among TPers, she insisted that the focus was on cutting taxes and decreasing government. The social conservative’s reply? 80 to 90% of TPers also support social conservative policies, and the TP needs to not be libertarian on social issues if it wants to keep these people in. Besides, look at the actual candidates that the TP has fielded–almost all are not just radical, but unfit for office: Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Joe Miller, etc. Probably because the TP is more prone to leader-worship (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin) than they like to admit. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/25 "2010-09-17T21:52:52Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The Contract lists 10 agenda items that it encourages congressional candidates to follow:[63][64] 1. Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%) 2. Reject emissions trading: Stop the “cap and trade” administrative approach used to control carbon dioxide emissions by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of carbon dioxide. (72.20%) 3. Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification. (69.69%) 4. Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%) 5. Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in an audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities. (63.37%) 6. Limit annual growth in federal spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%) 7. Repeal the health care legislation passed on March 23, 2010: Defund, repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (56.39%) 8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy: Authorize the exploration of additional energy reserves to reduce American dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation. (55.5%) 9. Reduce Earmarks: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%) 10. Reduce Taxes: Permanently repeal all recent tax increases, and extend permanently the George W. Bush temporary reductions in income tax, capital gains tax and estate taxes, currently scheduled to end in 2011. (53.38%) [/QUOTE] Wow. Except for #8 & #9, those are all reasons I would vote against them. #5 isn’t that bad, except that I don’t know how this commission will be appointed & whether to trust their judgment. Whose judgment of constitutionality will be used? Will this be the real constitution, or the magic imaginary “all that is not required is forbidden” Divine Constitution? Even if we were to get officers in the commission that understand what the constitution is & is not, I worry more about their possible judgments of which functions would be “better performed” by states & localities. That can be an excuse to cut programs for fiscal reasons & have them not done at all; see our rotting infrastructure today. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/26 "2010-09-17T21:56:04Z")
> [@sleeping](#): > > Besides, look at the actual candidates that the TP has fielded–almost all are not just radical, but unfit for office: Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Joe Miller, etc. Probably because the TP is more prone to leader-worship (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin) than they like to admit. Don’t worry about it. A right-populist movement prone to leader-worship? What could go wrong with that? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/27 "2010-09-17T21:56:59Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > **Chronos** is correct that the multiple tax brackets has really nothing to do with the complexity of the currect income tax. > > > [@](#): > > > > 1. Reject emissions trading: Stop the “cap and trade” administrative approach used to control carbon dioxide emissions by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of carbon dioxide. (72.20%) > > “Cap and trade” is an economic incentive, isn’t it? > > For that matter, can you “stop” something that hasn’t actually been started yet? And without “cap and trade” how would the government provide “economic incentives”? Certainly not in the tax code; we’ve only got 4,543 words to play with, must use them carefully. This confused me too, but they’re saying they don’t want economic incentives to control emissions. “by” isn’t modifying “Stop” but “control.” Of course it’s written ambiguously enough to allow people who want economic incentives to control CO2 emissions to claim that it’s for them. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/28 "2010-09-17T22:04:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t worry about it. A right-populist movement prone to leader-worship? What could go wrong with that? If its base is in the rural provinces of the country, & it embraces both the concepts of _Kulturkampf_ & _Kampfkultur_, that is distressingly familiar, whether “right” or [“left.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/29 "2010-09-17T22:23:35Z")
I forgot to add that this silliness about “assessing Constitutionality” seems to me an outgrowth of a legal culture where the courts are expected to define laws as “unconstitutional” & thus void them when passed. Legislatures are there to legislate. The Bill of Rights & the common-law tradition are supposed to put simple minimal restrictions on that function. But the Constitution has been mythologized & built up–on both sides of the aisle–to the point that now the simple fact of the function is not recognized. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/30 "2010-09-17T22:55:34Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Of course it’s written ambiguously enough to allow people who want economic incentives to control CO2 emissions to claim that it’s for them. Nah, that’s just an unintended ambiguity on their part. Find me a single teabagger who doesn’t think global warming is a myth. > [@](#): > > I forgot to add that this silliness about “assessing Constitutionality” seems to me an outgrowth of a legal culture where the courts are expected to define laws as “unconstitutional” & thus void them when passed. Yeah, this precept is both strange and likely unconstitutional itself. If the legislature started deciding which laws are constitutional and which are not, it would intrude upon the powers delegated to the judicial branch. Tellingly, TPers always yells about protecting the constitution, but only for certain things–and they never actually cite the legal precedent that would support their position. Deeming something “unconstitutional” now merely means, “I oppose it.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/31 "2010-09-18T00:07:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@sleeping](#): > > > > Besides, look at the actual candidates that the TP has fielded–almost all are not just radical, but unfit for office: Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Joe Miller, etc. Probably because the TP is more prone to leader-worship (Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin) than they like to admit. > > Don’t worry about it. A right-populist movement prone to leader-worship? What could go wrong with that? That sounds like a recipe for Communism. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/32 "2010-09-18T00:33:48Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > There is a hope though: Scott Brown and other moderate Republicans may be joined by Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and others to form a centrist faction of the Republican Party. What’s more likely to happen with the current Republican Party climate is that Brown and the ladies from Maine (the only real remaining moderate Republicans in the Senate) are going to be primaried from the right by batshit crazies like O’Donnell, Angle and Paladino. Brown is already in bad odor with the Repubs for crossing the aisle once or twice. Don’t you know that’s treason for a Republican now? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/33 "2010-09-18T01:00:58Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > > > There is a hope though: Scott Brown and other moderate Republicans may be joined by Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and others to form a centrist faction of the Republican Party. > > What’s more likely to happen with the current Republican Party climate is that Brown and the ladies from Maine (the only real remaining moderate Republicans in the Senate) are going to be primaried from the right by batshit crazies like O’Donnell, Angle and Paladino. Brown is already in bad odor with the Repubs for crossing the aisle once or twice. Don’t you know that’s treason for a Republican now? I believe you’re too pessimistic. Angle and O’Donnell will lose (I’d say 60% and 75% chances respectively) and Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and perhaps others will be elected. Obviously anyone who believes in 2+2=4 will see the basic logic of this-Paul and Rubio might be elected but Angle and O’Donnell is pushing it. ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/34 "2010-09-18T03:24:31Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > > [@jayjay](#): > > > > I believe you’re too pessimistic. Angle and O’Donnell will lose (I’d say 60% and 75% chances respectively) and Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and perhaps others will be elected. Obviously anyone who believes in 2+2=4 will see the basic logic of this-Paul and Rubio might be elected but Angle and O’Donnell is pushing it. Uhm…you do know Meg Whitman is not a candidate for the US Senate right? She’s buying, I mean running for governor of California. Did you perhaps mean Carly Fiorina? ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/35 "2010-09-18T03:27:08Z")
> [@Stuffy](#): > > > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > > > I believe you’re too pessimistic. Angle and O’Donnell will lose (I’d say 60% and 75% chances respectively) and Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and perhaps others will be elected. Obviously anyone who believes in 2+2=4 will see the basic logic of this-Paul and Rubio might be elected but Angle and O’Donnell is pushing it. > > Uhm…you do know Meg Whitman is not a candidate for the US Senate right? She’s buying, I mean running for governor of California. Did you perhaps mean Carly Fiorina? To be fair, it’s easy to see how one could confuse the two. Both are wealthy CEOs with vanity campaigns. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/36 "2010-09-18T03:37:51Z")
> [@sleeping](#): > > To be fair, it’s easy to see how one could confuse the two. Both are wealthy CEOs with vanity campaigns. Does [Regnery](http://www.regnery.com/) have a new political management subsidiary now? ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/37 "2010-09-18T03:57:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@sleeping](#): > > > > \*I do not think the Tea Party, overall, is a libertarian movement. It may have started out that way with Ron Paul in 2008, but that’s not what it is now, as a whole. It is really an intensification of most far-right Republican stances (on abortion, the government, spending, gay marriage, the war on terror, immigration, tort reform, etc.). > > Well, I would judge the movement’s stances – at least, its highest-priority stances – mainly from its [“Contract from America”:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#Tea_Party_agenda_.22Contract_from_America.22) > > Note that there’s nothing about abortion or gay marriage or the War on Terror. Its focus is small-government economic-libertarian – deregulate, defund, privatize, cut taxes. > > > [@sleeping](#): > > > > \*there has been considerable corporate funding of the movement, particularly the millions from the Koch brothers to Americans for Prosperity. > > No surprise. A lot of the above – or at least moves in the same general direction – might appear beneficial to a lot of corporate interests. Okay, here’s one poll I found that challenges the “Tea Party is a libertarian movement” idea: > [@](#): > > At the same time, 70 percent of those who sympathize with the Tea Party, which organized protests this week against President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, want a federal government that fosters job creation. > > They also look to the government to rein in Wall Street, with almost half saying the government should do something about executive bonuses. Supporters are also conflicted over whether private-enterprise elements should be introduced into government programs like Social Security and Medicare. > > “The ideas that find nearly universal agreement among Tea Party supporters are rather vague,” says J. Ann Selzer, the pollster who created the survey. “ **You would think any idea that involves more government action would be anathema, and that is just not the case.** ” > … > Many more, 65 percent, say Social Security is either definitely or sort of socialism. Even so, almost half, 47 percent, want to keep it under government control or aren’t sure about privatization, with 53 percent in favor of privatizing Social Security and Medicare. > > [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aLBZwxqgYgwI](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aLBZwxqgYgwI) Okay, so _maybe_ they want the government to create jobs by “getting out of the way,” but then why do they want the government to limit executive bonuses? Why do only 10% consider the VA socialist, when it’s one of the truly socialist programs in the U.S.? Why does a majority consider SS socialist, yet almost half does not want it privatized? Why do Palin and Joe Miller, who come from the only state in the union with what can be called socialist policies (redistribution of oil profits to all citizens), espouse the kind of mythic rugged individualism found only in Ayn Rand novels and 19th century Westerns? I think that the TP is best characterized as raw anger and resentment (sometimes justified, sometimes born of bigotry) that has adopted the mantle of libertarianism for its anti-establishment and contrarian edge, but really has little philosophical foundation. They have been fed the great lie, over the past 30 years, that government is always the problem. So, it is only natural that they are in a state of cognitive dissonance and end up supporting the government programs they are familiar with while denouncing federal intervention. IOW, all these attempts to tease out some guiding principle of the TP are necessarily fruitless. It’s just a mass of people who sense that they have been betrayed by their government but whose ideology, long cultivated by the right, precludes them from seeing the tight nexus between the wealthy and government. During the Great Depression, one working class Southerner remarked that he would vote for anyone who punished the Wall St tycoons, whether it was the Communist Party or the Ku Klux Klan. This same kind of rage and confusion has re-emerged, only they cannot denounce capitalism as such because years of propaganda by conservative think tanks has made devotion to the free market axiomatic. Hence, you have this apparent incongruity of the TP championing capitalism while demanding that the government limit Wall St executive pay. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/38 "2010-09-18T04:26:18Z")
The Tea Party is all about branding above policy. People want to vote for the “conservatives who’ll kick ass & take names” but simply project what they want to imagine the policy is. There’s little awareness of what a serious policy debate or position would look like. It’s really the culmination of GOP politics to this point & indeed of two-party politics in general. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/39 "2010-09-18T05:50:51Z")
I believe that what is guiding the Tea Party is a desire (to paraphrase Wm. F. Buckley) to stand athwart government and yell “_STOP!_” This is why the TP appears disorganized, projects no particular agenda, has no platform and nothing in particular in the way of legislative goals. It simply wants to stop the growth and reach of government, and, eventually, to shrink it. People like O’Donnell appear very much ready to do battle in trying to achieve this goal, and that’s why they’re winning primaries. From the voters’ point of view, it isn’t so much about what they’ll try to accomplish in terms of creating new programs, and it isn’t about what they’ll try to accomplish in terms of outlawing ‘teh gay’ and masturbation - it’s about what they’ll try to do to reduce the size and scope of government. It’ll be interesting to see if this sentiment prevails among mainstream conservative voters come election time. I have a hard time imagining that most of the country’s conservative voters will either stay at home or vote for Democrats rather than for Tea Party candidates, who, despite their lack of political gravitas, are impassioned to fight against the ever-increasing size and scope of government. But maybe they will. We’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916/40 "2010-09-18T15:06:49Z")
> [@Stuffy](#): > > > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > > > I believe you’re too pessimistic. Angle and O’Donnell will lose (I’d say 60% and 75% chances respectively) and Mark Kirk, Meg Whitman, and perhaps others will be elected. Obviously anyone who believes in 2+2=4 will see the basic logic of this-Paul and Rubio might be elected but Angle and O’Donnell is pushing it. > > Uhm…you do know Meg Whitman is not a candidate for the US Senate right? She’s buying, I mean running for governor of California. Did you perhaps mean Carly Fiorina? No meant I meant in general moderate Republicans being elected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tea-party-movements-overall-effect-on-the-2010-midterms/553916.md?page=3)